


Two Dads and An Uncle

by actual_iggy



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: AU, Road Trip, Two dads and an uncle, drug use warning, fidds uses weed for his Anxiety ok, thats what im calling this ok
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-12
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2019-07-29 19:09:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 7,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16270517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actual_iggy/pseuds/actual_iggy
Summary: A "things go different in 1982" AU in which Fiddleford happened to be around to act as a more level head between the Stan twins. Stan does take Journal 1, but decides not to leave Fiddleford and Ford to their own devices because of the state of things. The group embarks on a journey to New Jersey to hide the journal, fighting Ford's paranoia and a recently divorced Fiddleford's efforts to be a good parent to his son along the way.





	1. Prologue?

Another day, more research and more building. Ford looked at the outside- it was Fall now, the sticky heat of the summer dissipating. It would only be a matter of time before snow began to fall, but that was alright. He lived in a sturdy cabin, one which had survived six winters before this, and before here he had lived on the East Coast, where snow got to be nearly four feet deep some winters. He was awaiting his research partner, who lived in town. The man was taking a little longer than usual today, which irked Ford slightly. He needed to be on time. Whose time? His, probably.

Eventually, there was a knock at the door, and Ford opened it to greet his assistant. With the tall, gangly man was a small child in a green hooded sweatshirt. Ford was confused.

“Erm, good morning, Fiddleford.” He greeted, before indicating the child confusedly. The man ruffled the boy’s brunette hair as he introduced him:

“Oh! Stanford, this is my son Tate, he’s about four, got sent here to stay with me, and,” Fiddleford leaned in close and whispered this last part in an almost pleading tone, “I can’t find a sitter.”

“Dad, tell him about the eyes!” Tate peeped excitedly.

“I don’t want to tell him about the eyes, hun.” Fiddleford responded wearily. Ford raised an eyebrow which prompted his partner to explain anyway. “It’s those creepy floating eyes in the woods. He loves ‘em.”

“Well,” Ford did his best to smile at the child, “They’re harmless. They just want to look at you!” Ford had a young brother at home in New Jersey, he could talk to kids fine!

“Are you a science-tist?” Tate asked as they went into the front room of the home. “What’s that?” he picked up a jar and looked at it as the adults conferenced.

“Fiddleford, it is extremely dangerous to have a child here.” Ford almost scolded.

“Yeah, I know that! I just don’t have anywhere else to put him right now! He’s four years old, I can’t leave him alone!” Fiddleford responded with irritation. “Can’t we just put him in front of your TV for a while?”

“I suppose so. I’ll go out and buy a game or something for him too.” Ford finally agreed after some thought. “They have those systems in town that you can plug into a TV.”

Before Ford could muse any further, there was a crash in the living room and an astonished, tiny “Wow!” Both adults rushed into the room to see Tate delightedly watching a severed hand scuttle across the room from a broken jar. Fiddleford scooped Tate up and shouted,

“Stanford! Get it!”

Ford scrambled to catch the thing while Tate clapped and laughed excitedly from his father’s arms. Ford eventually held the hand up and asked Fiddleford for an additional jar, which was given. Tate looked at the re-contained hand and asked his father,

“Dad, can I keep him?”

“No, Tate, it’s Stanford’s.” Fiddleford tiredly responded. “And also really terrifying.”

“Can we go buy one?”

“No, Tate. We can’t go buy a severed hand for you to keep as a pet.”


	2. Ford Needs A Nap

It had been a few months since Ford had seen Fiddleford. He couldn’t get into contact with the man either, which was bad because well… He was in too deep. He had not slept in a few weeks as well and was finding his thoughts so foggy and disjointed he couldn’t help but ask if it was his fatigue and pain or the demon inhabiting his head. His eye hurt, so bad it periodically bled. He had grown used to the burning, throbbing pain, but it was still there, clouding his head and making finding a solution to his problem even harder. Maybe, Ford thought, he could put his head down for a moment and doze. Just a rest, not a sleep. He could not sleep, or the demon would be able to control him.

He started back to alertness due to a small knocking at his door. This confused him. It was the dead of winter in the middle of the woods, who would be visiting? Opening the front door, Ford revealed the small form of Tate, in a T shirt with a teddy bear’s head on it, his cargo pants and Velcro racecar shoes on the wrong feet.

“Tate?” he asked in pure confusion. The boy looked up at him, his green eyes visible through his long bangs and didn’t entirely respond, instead asking a question.

“Can I come in and play Atari?”

“I… Where’s your dad?” Ford wondered, looking around for Fiddleford. No sign of him. This raised an alarm in Ford’s foggy mind: Fiddleford was fiercely protective of his son, if Tate was somewhere by himself, it meant something bad was going on with his parent.

“He’s back at home. I got ready and I walked here all by myself!” Tate announced excitedly. Ford crouched down to the child’s level. He had to make sure the demon was not influencing this child, so he quickly shone his pocket flashlight in each eye, much to the child’s distaste: “Ow! Stop it!”

This established, Ford decided he needed to return Tate to Fiddleford. He picked the boy up and headed inside. He quickly dialed the house phone and heard a few rings and a click, followed by an answering machine prompting him to leave a message.

“Fiddleford, I know you sent me to your machine on purpose. I have Tate here, he wandered out in the snow with no jacket to play on my Atari. Come get him.” Ford stated. Within a moment of  hanging up the phone rang again. It was Fiddleford.

“Tate’s there? I left him in the living room…” he sounded disoriented and tired, which was pretty much exactly how Ford currently felt. “What time is- Oh no. I’ll be right over.” This accomplished, Fiddleford hung up and Ford set Tate up on his video game system.

“Your dad will be here to get you soon. You shouldn’t wander off like that.” Ford admonished.

“Dad didn’t even notice, I bet.” Tate informed Ford, shrugging. He set to work playing his game. Ford noticed, for the first time, that his shoes were mismatched.

“Tate, your shoes are on the wrong feet.” He pointed out. Tate looked at his feet for a while before proceeding to clumsily un-velcro them and switch his feet.

“I’m only four! I don’t know left and right yet!” he defended, beginning to put the shoes back on wrong.

“No, here, let me help.” Ford sighed and sat to help the child put his shoes on. He recalled foggily a simple trick his mother had taught his little brother to tell left from right. He made both his index fingers and thumbs into L shapes and held them over Tate’s shoulders, so the boy was seeing them from a first-person perspective. “The left side makes an L, for left.” He explained, indicating the left hand with a bounce. “The right side doesn’t.”

It occurred to Ford that he didn’t really know how this would help the child determine which were his right and left shoes. He felt a drop of liquid running out of his right eye. It had probably begun to bleed again. By this point the trickling red tears were more of an annoyance than anything else, but it might be frightening to a child. Tate was suitably distracted for the moment, holding his small, chubby hands out in two Ls and frowning at them. Ford took this moment to grab a moderately clean napkin from a table and press it against his sore eye, willing the bleeding to stop in the name of not alarming anyone.

Soon enough, Fiddleford showed up at the door. He seemed to be in quite a frazzled state- his dirty-blond hair was dulled with dirt and grease and very unbrushed, his clothes were dirty and wrinkled, he had dark circles around his eyes and he seemed jumpier than was usual for even him. Ford nodded in greeting.

“Fiddleford.” He stated in as much of an ‘I am well adjusted and have been sleeping fine’ voice as he could manage. Fiddleford had looked almost mad at Ford when first seeing him, with reason. But now, seeing his friend in the state he was in, his face softened.

“Stanford… what’s wrong?” he asked, indicating Ford’s general state of disarray. “What’s happened?”

Ford beckoned his friend in and began to explain. Fiddleford’s infinite anxiety about the portal project had been warranted. At the mention of the portal, Fiddleford blinked and then nodded, agreeing:

“Yeah… it was a portal, wasn’t it?”

Ford chose to ignore that oddity for the time being and pressed on. After Fiddleford left the project, Ford had decided to press on since he didn’t entirely need the help of his engineer friend anymore. However, he had come to learn that a creature- he shook his head and backtracked his explanation. There was a being, he started explaining, a being who spoke to him in his dreams. It had told him that he was great, that he was going far. These were facts Ford, someone who had excelled in everything his entire life already knew, but it was very flattering to hear it from a powerful dream being. It had given him the plans for the portal. But it had tricked him.

“So you see, Fiddleford, you were right about this being the end of the world.” Ford finished despondently. “All I can do now is try to sleep as little as possible and hide my blueprints and hope.”

Fiddleford’s leg was bouncing where he sat in the living room, a nervous habit he had always had. He seemed to be thinking, but stopped and looked concerned and wide-eyed at Ford.

“Stanford, your face is bleedin’.” He indicated the eye.

“Yes. That just happens periodically.” Ford agreed, finding another mostly clean napkin to put on the bloody spot. “It has to do with that being. He can take control of my body while I sleep and is pretty much always in my head. It makes my eye bleed because…” he searched his sleep-deprived brain for a proper explanation and then gave up, “My body doesn’t like that. The whole possession thing.”

“So you’re hidin’ your blueprints.” Fiddleford rephrased his friend, “And tryin’ not to sleep.”

“I’m very tired.” Ford agreed. “I have one more to hide.” He held up the notebook with its gold-paper six-fingered hand sporting a 1. “I have already sent word to the man I am trusting to hide it.”

He could trust Fiddleford. After all, he knew Fiddleford may just decide to forget about all of this once he left. He knew Fidds still had that device, the one that altered brain patterns. Fiddleford and the other… they were all he could trust in this world anymore.

And the world may be doomed anyway.


	3. The Stans Have A Reasonable Conversation For Once (OOC)

Portal? Torn into pieces via torches and pliers. Coffee? Had. Bill Cipher? Mostly quiet inside Ford’s head for now.

Fiddleford and Tate had been staying in the spare room. Ford had explained that he really thought it was dangerous for anyone else, let alone a small child to be in the cabin, but Fiddleford had insisted Ford have someone to look after him, and he could not leave Tate alone. According to Ford’s calculations, any time today would be when his salvation would arrive. A rough knock at the door made both jumpy adults start.

Ford answered, aware he must look a sight. Dirty clothes, dark circles on the eyes, greasy unwashed hair, unshaven face… His first instinct was to grab the man at the door and shine a light into each eye, looking for anything to indicate any possession. The man complained heartily in a gravely voice and attempted to bat Ford’s hands away, eventually grabbing his wrists.

“Ford, for fuck’s sake, what’s going on?” he asked. “You haven’t talked to me in ten years, and when I get here I see you’re living in a cabin in the middle of the woods, you look like you haven’t slept or showered in a year, and that guy,” he indicated a nervous Fiddleford, “looks like he’s gonna bolt if I look at him wrong.” He spotted Tate. “Also, give that kid a haircut.”

Ford wrenched himself away from his visitor’s hands and dusted himself off, clearly trying to seem much less of a wreck than he was.

“Hello, Stanley.” He greeted, trying to affect aloofness. “Nothing is ‘going on,’ I just need you to do something.”

“Stanford, who is this guy?” Fiddleford asked anxiously. “And how’s he gonna help us?”

“Fiddleford, this is my brother, Stanley. He left home when he was seventeen.” Ford explained. Stanley rolled his eyes and pulled his hood down with mittened hands, revealing his own somewhat dirty visage. Unwashed, curly brown hair, dark blue eyes, prominent round nose, he looked almost exactly like Ford minus the dark circles and glasses.

“Don’t sugarcoat it.” He chastised his brother. “We’re twins. Inseparable ‘til we were seventeen and I fucked up and got kicked out. I’ve been on the street for ten years while Ford here has apparently been living the high life in his isolated science-nerd hole.”

“Stanford, you never told me you had a twin!” Fiddleford expressed his shock.

“Well, it never came up.” Ford said rather testily. He turned back to his brother. “Look, we have bigger problems on our hands. We can talk later, but I need you to take this,” he presented his notebook, “and get it as far away from here as possible.”

Stanley looked perplexed, then mad. Fiddleford gently guided Tate behind him in case a fight broke out. Ford continued to hold his journal out to his twin. Stanley finally crossed his arms and spoke, clearly angered.

“You called me, all the way from New Mexico, after silence for ten years, just to tell me to leave with your dumb book!?”

“I know it sounds harsh, but you really have no idea what I’m trying to deal with-” Ford started before his brother gave him a shove.

“I won’t do your goddamn dirty work! You hide that thing yourself. You want me gone again so bad? I’ll leave!”

With that, Stanley started to stalk out the front door. Ford ran after his brother, tripping over some clutter on the floor, placing the journal on the table as he went.

“Stanley, wait! I…” he grabbed his brother’s jacket. The material was thin. Too thin for a northern winter. Stanley turned to look back at his brother, and was startled to see pure desperation and even a bit of panic in his eyes. “I need you to help. You’re the only one left who _can_ help.”

“What about your friend and the kid?” Stanley wondered, his tone and stance softening a bit regardless. “Can’t they help? Why’d you call for me? I’m not good for anything ‘cept messing stuff up.”

“Fiddleford refuses to leave me alone, Tate is four, and… You’re my brother. I’d trust you with my life.” Ford answered. “A mistake you made when you were a teenager doesn’t matter now.”

“You don’t want me gone?” Stanley asked, turning to fully face his brother. Ford, more relaxed now that his brother seemed to calm down even smiled a little.

“Of course not. After you’ve hidden the journal, come back here and we can stay together again.”

Stanley came back inside and looked the book over. It was a little ragged, but otherwise sturdy and nice as far as notebooks. He considered everywhere he’d ever been that would make a good hiding spot, and concluded one place in particular. Still staring down at the journal, he voiced what he was going to do:

“Ford, we have to go back to New Jersey.”


	4. Stan has no idea how four year olds work

Getting Ford out of the house was a feat. It involved bribing him with coffee, but he eventually did come out to the car. Stanley explained that he didn’t want to leave his brother alone, especially not while his eyeball periodically decided to bleed and he argued with a demon in his head. Fiddleford, Stanley had determined, needed to get out more and Tate could come too. Their plan was to drive as close to nonstop as possible to New Jersey and hide the journal in a spot Ford had told Stanley not to tell him. He’d tapped his head and reminded Stan of the demon who was always listening to him and may hear their plan if he knew it.

Stan for the most part had just decided to humor his brother’s paranoia.

Roughly an hour out of Gravity Falls, Tate spoke up from the back seat he shared with Ford.

“Dad, I have to pee.”

Fiddleford glanced at Stan, who was currently driving.

“Stanley, pull over. Tate has to pee.”

“There’s an exit in like, five minutes.” Stan argued. “He can hold it. I’m not stopping so your kid can piss by the side of the highway.”

“Stanley,” Fiddleford began forcefully, “when a little kid says they have to pee, they ain’t telling you. They’re warning you that you better stop right now.”

“He’s almost big enough to be in school, he can hold it.” Stan insisted. “I have a little brother, I know what I’m doing.”

“A little brother you haven’t seen since he was an infant.” Ford drowsily remarked. He’d taken to dozing on and off with his hands ziptied together, ‘in case Bill tried to take over his mind while he slept.’

Stan was trying _real hard_ to humor his brother's paranoia.

Tate squirmed in his seat and then went wide-eyed.

“Dad…” he said in a very small voice. “I don’t have to pee anymore.”

“Oh hun…” Fiddleford sighed, then looked at Stan, irritated. “Stop at a gas station or something so I can clean him up.”

Cut to about five minutes later in a parking lot containing a McDonald’s and a drug store, Fiddleford lead Tate into the restaurant to use their bathroom to tidy him up, spare clothes in hand. Stan, meanwhile, scrubbed at the soiled seat of his car with some wet wipes obtained in the drug store. Ford stood by with his hands no longer zip tied together and sipped on a coffee obtained at a nearby coffee stand. Stan glanced at his brother annoyedly and stopped his scrubbing, fishing a somewhat dirty ten dollar bill from his jacket pocket and holding it out to Ford.

“How about instead of standing here staring at me, you go buy some food or something.” He suggested. Ford looked at the money and then back at Stan.

“I’d rather not spend your money.” He responded to the situation, setting his coffee on the roof of the car to avoid having to bring it into the restaurant with him. “I’ll go get food, though. What do you want?”

“I don’t care, just leave me to clean your dumb friend’s dumb kid’s piss off my seat.” Stan practically ranted as he resumed scrubbing. “This is good leather and some kid comes by and just… pees all over it!” he grumbled to himself as Ford headed into the restaurant.

Fiddleford was already at the counter, ordering a children’s meal for Tate who was bouncing excitedly around, now in a red T shirt that declared “16” on the front in black and white numbers and jeans under his green quilted jacket. Ford internally sighed as he felt the familiar trickle of liquid on his right eye. It was bleeding again, in a public space. He was almost too tired to care. Almost. He grabbed a handful of napkins and pressed them against his eye before Fiddleford noticed him.

“Oh, Stanford, your eye!” he expressed concern. “Here, watch Tate and the food, I’ll run to the drug store over there and get some bandages. I got burgers for us and a kids’ meal for Tate.”

“What happened?” Tate asked as soon as his father left the building. Ford shrugged.

“It leaks sometimes.” He explained as simply as possible. No need to tell the child it was blood that leaked out, or that it hurt so goddamn bad he could barely stand it sometimes.

“Sometimes my nose leaks.” Tate related. “Dad says it’s ‘cuz of allergies.”

“Or a cold.” Ford agreed. “Colds make your nose run too, don’t they?”

“Yup!” Tate agreed with a grin. “If you’re a science-tist, then how come you don’t have a lab?” he then asked after stopping to consider it for a while.

“I do too have a lab!” Ford couldn’t help but smile at the child’s innocent questions. “It’s at my house.”

“But you ain’t got no chemicals at all!” Tate insisted, looking up in a perplexed manner. “Labs are s’posed to have chemicals!”

“I’m not a chemical scientist, though.” Ford told him. “I study animals called cryptids.”

“Kip-tids.” Tate repeated.

“Yes, they’re animals that people can’t really prove exist! I prove they exist, you see.” Ford explained his research to Tate. “I have seen all kinds of cryptids!”

“What about aliens?” Tate wondered, pointing at the generic alien toy in the display on the restaurant counter.

“I haven’t seen an alien yet.” Ford shrugged. “I think they’re too sneaky for me!”

“You just gotta go into outer space!” Tate suggested a solution. “That’s where they live!” he frowned. “Sometimes in cornfields too.”

Ford picked up the paper bag of food and handed Tate the box containing his meal. He headed for the door, still holding the wad of napkins over his face. When he got outside, Stan was finished scrubbing at his seat and Fiddleford was emerging from the drug store with a bag presumably containing bandages. Fiddleford quickly set his bag on the trunk of the car and put Tate into the freshly cleaned seat.

“Eat up, Tater Tot, we’re gonna be on the road again soon.” He plopped the box into the child’s lap. Tate munched on a few French fries and looked at his toy which was stuck in a plastic bag.

“Dad, can you please open it?” he asked as sweetly as someone with a mouth full of French fry could manage. Fiddleford made quick work of the toy and inspected it. A plastic monster truck with a small sheet of stickers that could be applied. He handed the car to Tate but kept the stickers.

“Here, now eat your lunch!”

Next, attention was turned to Ford and his sore eye. Fiddleford produced a roll of bandages and some gauze as well as a bottle of aspirin.

“Here, Stanford, take some of this and let me put bandages on that eye.”

Ford’s eye bandaged, Tate’s clothes changed and Stan’s back seat cleaned, the group was soon on the road again.


	5. Jesus said Fuck

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Start of the warning for Fiddleford and weed. It'll go into the next chapter.

Being on the road was boring, even with the radio lightly playing in the background. It was particularly boring for Tate, since small children don’t usually care about pop music. So, it fell on the adults to entertain the small boy. This devolved rather quickly. Soon, Stan and Ford were in a contest to teach Tate the most inappropriate phrases they could think of, much to Fiddleford’s horror.

“Tater! Would Jesus have said that?” an exasperated Fiddleford scolded as Tate repeated a few of the choice words he had been taught.

“I dunno.” Tate responded, shrugging. “I ain’t asked.”

“Aw, come on, Fiddles,” Stan snorted from the driver’s seat. “Jesus totally said fuck.”

“ _He did not!_ ” Fiddleford just about yelped.

“Jesus said fuck.” Tate said rather matter-of-factly.

“Tater, _no._ ” Fiddleford told the child emphatically.

He thought the problem was solved as Tate went quiet and settled back into listening to the radio and the sound of the freeway. Stan, the driver at the time, determined that the group was going to stop at a small grocery store to obtain snacks and stretch their feet. He also wouldn’t say that it was what he was doing, but he had been making certain to stop at least once an hour ever since the incident with Tate and the “having to pee.” Fiddleford told Tate to pick out a snack and a drink and put them on the counter. The small brunette child looked up at the cashier innocently, asking,

“Hey, wanna hear something I learned?”

She smiled at him and responded, “Sure, what did you learn, little guy?”

“I learned that Jesus said fuck!” Tate excitedly announced. Fiddleford let out a sound somewhere between a scream and a choke and immediately picked the child up to move him aside.

“I am so sorry. He ain’t usually like this. I am _so_ sorry.” The child’s dad frantically apologized to the flabbergasted cashier. He glanced at the child by his side. “Tate, honey, don’t say that.” He gently admonished.

“But it’s true.” Tate responded with a shrug.

“Says who?”

“Stanford says it’s true and he knows lotsa stuff.”

“Stanford didn’t grow up going to church, though. He don’t know what Jesus did and didn’t say.”

Tate was quiet for the rest of the transaction as he reflected on this. He was placed back into the back seat of the car and given his bag of chips and little can of Bepis cola and Fiddleford beckoned the twins over, Stan already leaning against the hood of the car and smoking a cigarette. He sighed and put on the most polite demeanor he could manage.

“Boys, I have to talk to you about Tate.”

Ford sipped an energy drink and raised his eyebrows at Stan. Stan raised his eyebrows back at Ford, both seeming to be silently accusing one another of causing the problem. Fiddleford pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.

“It makes me look bad as a parent if y’all keep telling Tate swear words like that. Can you stop it?”

“It _is_ kind of hilarious though.” Ford observed.

“No, no it ain’t.” Fiddleford said shortly.

“Alright, alright. We’ll stop teaching your kid swear words.” Stan, in the interest of preventing a larger argument agreed. He took a draw from his cigarette and considered something as he blew the smoke out. “Though, I’m pretty sure Jesus probably said fuck at some point.”

“This is making me dizzy. If you’re done, Fiddleford, I think I may lie down.” Ford looked at his can of energy drink.

“Yeah, go…” Fiddleford sighed. From his pocket, he produced a small item that was not entirely unlike Stan’s cigarette. However, the smell it emitted once lit, was different. Stan knew the scent, though.

“You,” he started, as Fiddleford gave him a look. “Hey, I don’t have a problem with it. I’ve done worse stuff, trust me. I think you deserve the break. You’re working hard to be a good dad to Tate, and I think it shows.”

“You really think I’m an alright parent?” Fiddleford asked, looking at the stars around them.

“Yeah. Better than I’d be.”

Fiddleford chuckled. “Well, thanks, Stanley.”

As the two leaned against the hood of the car in that small store parking lot, watching the stars, Tate and Ford had both fallen asleep in the back seat of the rather weathered El Diablo. It was weirdly peaceful and like something out of a comedic family movie- the paranoid insomniac, the innocent child and his anxious father, and the mulleted vagabond, all together for the same goal.


	6. It's an Oboe, Mom

It was only a few moments after the tranquility of the night settled into Stan and Fiddleford that Fiddleford realized something. His head felt hazy, his vision jumped like a poorly filmed movie, and he could feel fog overtaking his brain.

“Um, Stanley,” Fiddleford said, feeling rather dramatic, almost like these were his dying words, “I think I did a tad too much. Watch after Tate ‘til I’m sober, will ya’?” It was almost definitely the substance that lead to him feeling so calm about the situation.

“What?” Stan looked Fiddleford over and processed the statement. “Aw, great…” he groaned. “Let’s get back into the car I guess. Get in back.”

Ford raised an eyebrow at his brother, nonverbally asking what was happening. Stan just shook his head and jerked his thumb back at Fiddleford who was rather clumsily trying to put Tate’s seatbelt on.

“That ain’t how you do it.” Tate corrected his father, totally unconcerned and unaware of the state he was in. “Ya’ gotta push the thingy in.”

“I am pushin’ the thingy in.” Fiddleford responded, before stopping and squinting confusedly. “What thingy?”

“The seatbelt thingy!” Tate giggled. Fiddleford eventually gave up and sat back. Tate considered something. “Dad, do you got a crush on Stanford?”

“A crush?” Fidds snorted. “No, hun, I don’t have a crush on nobody.”

“Then how come you always wanna talk to him so much?”

“We’re friends, y’see.”

“Bestest friends?”

“Yup.”

Tate considered more questions as Stan got the car back onto the freeway.

“How long have you been friends?”

“Um,” Fiddleford thought for an absurdly long time, in fact until Tate slapped his arm and called,

“Dad?”

“Right, friends, well, I’d say at least… a month? A year? I dunno Tate, time is hard right now.”

It was quiet in the car for a while before Fiddleford, leaning heavily on the back of the driver’s seat, waved his hand in Stan’s face to get his attention.

“I think we need food.” He informed Stan, who sighed.

“Alright, I’ll stop for food.”

The car pulled into a Taco Bell parking lot and everyone exited. Tate was bouncing with excitement and Stan had to gently guide Fiddleford into the door. Stan and Ford decided Fidds could be left on his own for a few moments while they got the hyperactive four year old situated, and he was soon alone at the counter.

“I’ll have a Mcmuffin, please.” Fiddleford told the cashier after much deliberation. The teenager blinked in confusion before asking,

“Uh, what?”

“I want a muffin, please.”

“What… uh… kind of muffin?”

“The _Mc_ -Kind.”

The cashier rubbed his temples and sighed, finally processing that Fiddleford thought he was at a McDonalds.

“Sir, this is a Taco Bell.”

“Oh.” Fidds thought about that for a while. “A taco, then.”

“Hard or soft?”

Fiddleford stared blankly at the cashier for a while before very confusedly asking, “What?”

“Hard shell or soft shell?” the teen asked a little more forcefully.

“S-shell?” Fiddleford blinked, suddenly very aware of the fact he was in no state of mind to be trying to order food. Right in the nick of time, Ford showed up and quickly specified his friend’s order:

“He wants a three taco meal, soft shells, sour cream on it.”

“Um, your eye is bloody…” the teenager told Ford as he rung up that order.

“Yes, I know. Fiddleford, go sit down.”

“Sittin’ down…” Fiddleford hazily repeated, heading in the direction of the table.

Tate was busily munching on a bag of cinnamon twists Stan had given him, but looked up excitedly as his father approached.

“Dad, look, I got cinnamon twisties! At night!”

“You sure did, didn’t you?” Fiddleford agreed. Tate munched on his prize a bit longer before attempting to start a conversation with his dad again about some other child at the Gravity Falls Preschool he had attended for about two weeks prior to the entire incident.

“And, and, Tad says that Tyler’s gotta know everything ‘cuz he’s in second grade already! And so he says that if Tyler says that girls have butts, then they gotta have butts!”

“Tater, honey, don’t make me laugh, I can feel it in my ear canals!” Fiddleford snorted, rubbing his ears a bit.

“Wait… Butts!” Tate tested his theory, Fiddleford laughing harder. Tate grinned excitedly and began chanting: “Butts! Butts! Butts!”

It was right as Fiddleford laughed so hard he fell off the chair that Stan and Ford got back with food for the group. Ford snorted at his friend and helped him back up into the chair, handing him an unwrapped taco.

“I had to do this a few times in college, you know.” He observed, watching Fiddleford go quiet as he consumed his taco.

“He did this shit in college?” Stan probed.

“Yeah. He says it helps his anxiety. I don’t know how much scientific backing that actually has, but he sure did used to smoke in the dorm room. And at home.”

“At home? His parents were okay with that?”

“No, no, he is just the smartest one in the family, so he was easily able to hide the habit. You see, Fiddleford grew up in a small town in Tennessee. His family are conservative, religious, and not very bright. He also has nine sisters- five older and four younger.”

“Yeesh. I’m glad we just got us and Shermie.”

Ford’s smile widened as he recalled the next story:

“Once, we were in Fiddleford’s room on the farm- erm, his family specifically raised pigs, you see, and we were partaking in weed.”

“ _Partaking in weed_ ” Stan cracked up, taking several moments to get his composure back. “Alright, alright,” he finally sighed. “I’m done. Go on.”

“ _Anyway_ ,” Ford continued, “Fiddleford’s mom came in, and of course we didn’t know what we were going to do, as we would get into big trouble if she figured out what we had been doing. She asked us, all accusingly, if we had ‘the Devil’s Lettuce,’ and Fiddleford, thinking insanely fast, just responded, ‘No, mom, this is an oboe.’”

“An oboe?”

“An oboe.”  Ford agreed, folding his hands on the table in front of him. “So, of course, poor Mrs. McGucket asks us to ‘prove’ that it is an oboe, and Fiddleford… Good, clever Fiddleford, picks the bong up, and makes a sort of ‘hrrrrr’ sound into it. Like an oboe. She bought it. I have no idea how or why, but she bought it.”

“It’s an oboe, Mom.” Fiddleford giddily offered from across the table, having just comprehended the conversation that was happening. He then put his head down and started giggling hopelessly.

“A fuckin’ oboe.” Stan shook his head, grinning at the very thought of the story. "Well, let's get back on the road."

Tate, a child, was the first to fall asleep as the car continued to rumble down the highway. Ford attempted to keep Fiddleford busy until he too fell asleep. Then, it was quiet in the car once more and the group continued on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "The McKind" is actually something someone asked for at my girlfriend's work. She does actually work at a McDonalds, though. They just have like five mcmuffins.


	7. Stan and Ford level with each other

While Fiddleford was asleep, Stan and Ford were left with each other. It was an awkwardly silent ride as the two brothers thought of what exactly they should say. Ford was eventually the first to break the silence:

“Stanley, I have to wonder, why were you so willing to just admit to Fiddleford that you were kicked out? You hardly know him. It just seems odd.”

Stan shrugged as best he could with his hand on the steering wheel.

“I did it out of spite. I thought if your friend knew I’d gotten kicked out, it’d make you look like a shitty brother.”

“Well,” Ford sipped at the coffee he held. “If I’m such a shitty brother, why did you insist on taking me on this trip, rather than leaving me alone.”

“I had a bad feeling about leaving you three. I don’t know exactly what you’re up against, but I didn’t wanna leave you to face it alone, Fiddlesticks is your friend, and Potato there is just a kid.” Stan shrugged again. “I had a bad feeling about just leaving you all there so I took you all along with me.”

Ford internally sighed. He was thinking, as he usually did, and considering, and measuring, and calculating. Keeping Bill a secret from Fiddleford had ended in Fiddleford being hurt and scared away from the project. While that had been beneficial in the end, as Bill was a malevolent being, Fiddleford had still gotten hurt. Trying to behave secretively around Stanley had only gotten them arguing and feeling awkward, and, Ford thought, his parents were almost definitely worried by now. When was the last time he had sent a postcard to his little brother, or called his mother? He wasn’t entirely sure. Keeping things secret had gotten Ford nowhere but paranoid, injured and sleep deprived. It was, he decided, time to come clean.

“Stanley,” Ford started, after his prolonged silence, “I need to explain some things.”

He spoke about the strange being that had come to him in a dream, saying he was going to do great things. This was, of course, nothing Ford didn’t already know about himself, but hearing it from some omnipotent… thing was very validating. He grew to trust and enjoy the presence of this odd-looking little being in his head who knew so much more than he ever could. He knew Fiddleford would be suspicious, but when tasked to make an interdimensional travel device by his little friend, he found his own skills in mechanics and engineering to be lacking. Fiddleford, however, had gone to college specifically to obtain a degree in mechanical engineering, and graduated the top of the class. He described the incident and how it had driven Fiddleford away from the project, fearing for his own, his son’s and the very universe’s safety.

Ford explained that he had confronted his friend in his mind about the danger of the project and had come to realize he had been tricked. Now, he could not sleep, pass out, or be knocked unconscious as the being could and would take over his mind and body and cause him physical harm.

“And so, I may not be so much of a genius after all…” he finished defeatedly, staring down at his hands holding the coffee cup. Stan lightly punched his twin in the shoulder.

“Heh, of course _you’d_ get involved with some brain demon.” He teased, referencing the fact that Ford had always been keenly interested in supernatural beings and entities.

“Well, he isn’t exactly a _demon_ , per se.” Ford responded, not entirely getting the fact he was being teased. “He’s more of an alien. An interdimensional alien.”

“What does this horrible brain stealing demon alien look like, anyway?” Stan asked, not taking his eyes off the road. Ford scribbled a drawing on his memo pad and showed it to Stan. A triangle with a big eye in the middle, wearing a top hat and bow tie, and in possession of thin, stick-like limbs.

“That looks… absolutely ridiculous.” Stan snorted. Ford was already ripping up the drawing.

“I suppose so.” He agreed, stuffing the paper shreds into his pockets.

“He’s all dressed up to go steal a brain.”

“A formal brain stealing event.” Ford agreed, smiling.

The brothers sat in amused silence for a while longer before Ford asked something else that had been on his mind:

“Stanley, why were all your things in the car when you first arrived? Were you traveling?”

Stan’s belongings had been haphazardly piled in Ford’s living room for safekeeping while the group was on their road trip, but in helping move those things, Ford had noticed that Stan seemed to have everything in his car. He had boxes of casual clothes, a set of more formal clothes, three or so small appliances, a little propane stovetop, a radio, the letterman jacket he had obtained in high school… All things that should have been left at home. Stan sighed. Keeping secrets would not help him either.

“I live in this car.”

Ford looked startled, but Stan continued before he had a chance to say anything.

“I have off and on since I got kicked out. I’ve been in prison a few times, I was in a mental hospital for like, a week once… I tried to sell stuff, to make something of myself, but like… People get mad when you’re a 20 year old kid selling shitty bandages apparently. I got involved in drugs and gangs and all this nasty stuff and… I’m still not worth anything. I still live in a car.”

“But your address-” Ford started.

“A motel. I was staying there for a month or so. Was gonna have to move on when I got your post card.”

“I suppose Dad was right about you, then.” Ford half-joked. Stan sort of looked at his hands on the wheel.

“Yeah… Guess so.”

A few more moments of awkward silence passed before Ford put his hand on his brother’s.

“Stanley, I mean it. Especially now that I know you literally have nowhere else to go, you can stay with me in Oregon as long as you want or need.”

“But your research,” Stan half-heartedly protested.

“I need the extra muscle anyway, and well… You’re my brother. I don’t think you should have to be thrown out again, especially after helping me basically save the entire universe.” Ford sipped his coffee. “And, when I was left without you, I ended up being tricked and controlled by a brain stealing alien’s plot to end our world. I think I need you around to keep that from happening.”

“You are pretty stupid without me.” Stan smirked over at his twin.

“We’re stupid without each other, Stanley.”

“You’re stupider.”

“That’s not a word.” Ford chuckled. “…Stupid.”


	8. Ford Should Calm Down For Three Seconds

“I spy…. A green.”  
“Is it the trees again?”

Tate wrinkled his nose in annoyance.

“Dad, you’re cheatin’!”

Tate, in typical four year old fashion had been repeating his “I spy” game for roughly the last forty-five minutes and it was starting to wear on the adults. Fiddleford, finally growing sick of humoring his child reached into the front seat of the car and turned on the radio.

“Well, we’re playin’ the quiet game now. Be quiet the longest and you win.”

The car was quiet, with Stan driving and Ford starting to doze off in the passenger seat. It was peaceful for all of five minutes.

_Every step you take… every move you make… every bond you break, every step you take, I’ll be watching you…_

The pop song played on the radio softly as Fiddleford and Stan remained unaffected. Ford, however, shot awake and upright as the music continued.

_Oh can’t you see? You belong to me… How my poor heart aches… with every step you take…_

Stan, noting his brother’s distress turned the radio off so the car was in silence. This did not calm Ford much as the damage had already been done. He sat alert and wide-eyed, breathing heavily and trying not to act on some panicked instinct. Stan patted his brother’s shoulder and winced as the other jumped hard at the touch. He eyed Fiddleford in the rear-view mirror with raised eyebrows, silently asking him _“what do I do?”_

“Dad, I’m hungry.” Tate complained in the quiet, totally unaware of the tension in the car as usual.

“Hey, yeah, let’s stop for a snack run, huh Ford?” Stan jumped on the chance, trying to soothe his brother with a reassuring smile. Ford, still visibly very upset, nodded in agreement, mumbling that he thought that might be a good plan.

The store was a medium-ish grocery store in some medium town in the Midwest. The group split up to locate their desired products- Fiddleford went to take Tate to the bathroom and then to the snack aisle, Stan headed for the cigarette counter, and Ford headed for coffee. Along the way, Ford encountered a cereal box mascot.

It was a colorful yellow dog with big staring eyes and a grin on its face, and Ford was instantly unnerved. With nobody to ‘babysit’ him, he had to solve the problem himself. He logically decided that he was going to move all the eyes away from himself and set to work turning the boxes so their backs were facing out. About five minutes into this a store employee approached him.

“Uh, sir, can you stop messing with the display, please?”

Ford, wild-eyed and disheveled, turned towards the poor young woman in confusion. He had not slept normally in weeks at this point and had already been hallucinating eyes in trees and on road signs. He and Stan had worked out a system- if Stan did not react to a vision, Ford knew it wasn’t real. However, Ford was away from Stan, and Bill could take over anyone at any time, so he had no reason to believe that the yellow, catlike eyes he saw staring at him from this grocery clerk were not real.

Stan’s brisk walk towards Ford turned into a sprint as he heard a woman scream and his brother’s voice shouting deranged accusations of demons and spying. He skidded around the corner to see Ford, eyes bloodshot and wild with fear holding a pocketknife out in front of himself, and a terrified store employee cornered against the aisle.

“Stanford, what the fuck?!” Stan grabbed his brother’s wrists and quickly wrestled the knife away. “She didn’t do anything, Jesus!”

“She… He was in her eyes, Stanley, he was there!”

“Nothing is in her eyes, dumbass. Look what you did now!”

“But I saw…”

“There’s nothing there, you’re just paranoid and already kinda worked up,” Stan turned to the clerk, “And I’m sorry about him.”

“Um… It’s okay…” The clerk got out of there as fast as she could. Stan let go of his twin’s wrists and shook his head.

“I leave for five minutes.”

“I swear I saw…” Ford shook his head, realizing how crazy he sounded. “Never mind. I’ll just… go and get the coffees that I needed.”

Stan glanced at Fiddleford and Tate who had found them.

“He’s having a hard time.” He explained to Fidds. "We might wanna get outta here before that clerk calls the cops."

“Jesus said fuck.” Tate stated. Fidds looked like he wished he could be anywhere else but here with his child who recently learned swear words, his best friend the Paranoia Man and the mulleted delinquent who almost definitely was trying to shoplift something.

“He sure did, kiddo.” Stan agreed, looking Ford’s pocketknife over. “Jesus definitely said fuck.”


End file.
